Monument for a Hummingbird

“What else will need to abide by my rule in this new war of the world—those minerals, lakes, air particles, and currents that thrive in one formation but not another?”

—Elizabeth A. Povinelli

Murat Cem Mengüç’s Monument for a Hummingbird is a splice of watercolors and ink drawings which have been germinating in a series of sketchbooks spanning years. A result of the artist’s geologically informed daydreaming, the collection is composed of visions mineral and vegetal. In these dioramas, formations that might normally be relegated to scenography are foregrounded, allowing them to emerge as the prime source of movement, of elemental animation, of an eventfulness beyond anthropic fathoming.